Abandoned Westland Mall – Columbus, Ohio
The 860,000-square-foot Westland Mall – once a lively shopping center now sits a defunct shell of its former days. The mall which sits at the intersection of U.S. Route 40 and Interstate 270 on Columbus, Ohio’s west side has now sat decaying for years. Most of the mall had been shut down by November 2012, though some anchors and other stores remained, though barely in operation.Sears, the mall’s final anchor store, announced their closure in 2017. Plans for redevelopment have been talked about, with ideas for a mixed-use project at the site where the abandoned mall now stands.
Westland Mall opened its doors in February 1969. The mall was originally opened as an open-air shopping center, with anchor stores Lazarus, Sears, JCPenney, and Woolworth. The Lazarus store, which was the chain’s first suburban location, was originally opened in this location as a free-standing store in 1962. Sears and JC Penney, along with the rest of the mall, were later built around it between 1967–1969.
One notable thing to happen within the mall was its part in the teenage variety show America Goes Bananaz. From 1977 to 1980 the mall served as the studio for the show, which aired on Columbus’s experimental cable service QUBE.
In 1982, big design changes would come to the mall, when they had made the decision to transform it architecturally, and enclose the space. With Westland Mall now enclosed, the upper floor of Sears was closed as well. No longer operating as a retail space, the floor was converted into offices for their in-house credit card, Discover, during the late 1980s.
In January 1994, Woolworth closed when the chain eliminated 400 of its stores during their restructuring process. The empty space was then renovated into a Staples.
At one point, Columbus hosted four directionally-named shopping centers. Westland was among these four, with the others being Northland, which was the city’s original mall. Northland was closed in 2002 and eventually demolished in 2004. Another was Eastland Mall, which remains in operation today. Finally is Southland, which operated as a smaller discount-style mall, but is now closed. All but Southland Mall were constructed and originally operated by the Richard E. Jacobs Group. The malls all featured the same anchor stores.
The Westland Mall had become a major landmark within the Columbus area. Unfortunately, the mall faced numerous challenges as the 21st century approached. Westland Mall had slowly, but surely lost its status as one of the premier shopping destinations in Columbus. One of the things to hurt Westland the most was the opening of the nearby mall at Tuttle Crossing in 1997. The new mall attracted many of Westland’s former customers, and eventually JCPenney had abandoned Westland, relocating to the Tuttle mall. Some other major stores, such as Express and The Limited, also left Westland in favor of the better location.
In 2003, the mall was purchased by Kashani, a developer which also owned North Towne Square in Toledo, Ohio. With the purchase of Westland, Kashani had attempted to reposition the mall as a “bazaar-style” mall with many specialty shops, including a used bookstore, numerous arts and crafts dealers, and even a karate school. Yes, a karate school. I suppose a mall is a strange place for a karate school, though perhaps not as strange as the days when Euclid Square Mall was full of small churches. I’ll never forget walking those halls, hearing hymns being sung, reverberating throughout the cold, empty mall walkways. Anyway, back to Westland.
The Lazarus store in the mall had eventually been converted to Lazarus-Macy’s in 2003, before finally converting fully to Macy’s in 2005. Unfortunately, Macy’s only operated for two years before closing in 2007. Around this same time, almost all of the newer stores added under Kashani ownership had also been shut down. This could only lead to inevitable disaster for the once-popular shopping center.
By 2010, The future of Westland Mall was looking incredibly bleak, with almost no hope in sight. Unfortunately, its days as a shopping center were over, and there was just no way the mall would be brought back to what it once was. At this time, the mall contained fewer than 15 active businesses, with the only remaining national retailers being Sears, Finish Line, Champs Sports, GNC, and Staples. Any other storefronts still in operation were small, bazaar-style shops, a few eateries, and a local branch of the Franklin County Sheriff’s office. From this point, Westland Mall took a nosedive, and over the next four years, things had completely fallen apart.
This rapid descent started when Sears closed their entrance to the mall in September 2011. The store itself however, remained in operation. Previous to this, there had been some talk in 2008 that home-improvement retailer Menards was working on plans to expand into the Columbus market at the mall. This would have meant the mall being redeveloped into an open-air shopping center once again. However, later that year, Menards announced that these expansion plans were being put on hold, largely due to the Great Recession – a general economic decline happening from 2007-2009.
Though economic depression had hit the area surrounding the mall pretty hard, some new growth was seen when a new Hollywood Casino was opened in 2012 nearby. In March of 2012 plans were put in place to demolish the mall to replace it with a brand new shopping center. Sears would be the only store to remain. However, demolition never started, and five years later, on June 6, 2017, Sears announced permanent closure of their Westland store. The store was shut down on September 6, 2017, leaving the mall completely empty of any tenants.
Redevelopment plans were announced in 2019 after LGR Weston of Columbus purchased the former mall. The plans are to redevelop the Westland Mall site into the Weston Town Centre, a mixed-use development complement to the casino across the street. LGR’s sister company, Plaza Properties, had planned to demolish the mall before the end of Spring 2020, but those plans fell through. The former JCPenney store has been used for numerous community events hosted by the mall, which include about six gun shows per year. The gun shows have more recently been moved to the former Sears building.
